


Lettuce Embrace Thee, Sour Adversity

by dalmatienne



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, Humor, please don't base your opinions on my writing skill off this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 11:11:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18364829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalmatienne/pseuds/dalmatienne
Summary: Jaccob Slavin is, and Dougie isn't being at all facetious when he says this, too good for this world, too pure.





	Lettuce Embrace Thee, Sour Adversity

**Author's Note:**

> If you recognize your name in this story, please, for the love of all things holy and good, click away now.
> 
> This story was written in three hours and is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are my own, per usual. Title is from Shakespeare's Henry VI. This is a birthday present for my friend, based off this tweet:
>
>> The life of a high school teacher depends on one particular lettuce.
>> 
>> — Magic Realism Bot (@MagicRealismBot) [December 25, 2018](https://twitter.com/MagicRealismBot/status/1077709684432285696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> 
> God, I can't believe my first story about my sweet sweet storm boys is fucking this.

"I wouldn't ask this of you if I had any other choice. It's not fair, and you've got enough on your plate even without this."

Later, maybe in a decade or so, Dougie can look back at Rod's turn of phrase and laugh. Haha, plate, get it?

As it is now, all he can do it stare down at the flimsy packet of paper held together with an airplane-shaped paper clip that Rod had slid him across the worn wood of his desk. "The Importance of Good Nutrition" stares back at him in an egregiously cheerful font. There's shitty clipart of a dancing piece of broccoli and a dancing slice of bread.

The copyright date reads 1997.

Dougie's pretty sure there have been some pretty major changes in the field of nutrition in the past twenty-two years. Not that he would really know since he teaches history, which--

"Why me, Rod?"

Rod's mouth goes flat. His hands, laid flat on the surface of the desk, twitch a little but remain loose and open. He wears his role as principal well, much more open and supportive than the principal at Dougie's last two schools, but Dougie still can't shake the impression of having done something wrong whenever he's in the principal's office alone.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Dougie," Rod says and, to his credit, he is.

It doesn't make Dougie's life any easier.

*** * ***

"Fuck the GOP," Dougie says into his breakroom coffee. It's faintly grey rather than a rich brown color, but it's the only thing keeping Dougie afloat in a sea of subpar geography quizzes. Dougie loves all his students equally, but he cannot be blamed for his actions when one of the little shits keeps labeling Brazil as Portuguese Mexico.

Across the breakroom table, Justin gives him a crooked almost-smile that's just on the right side of pity. "Yeah, bud," he says and tops off Dougie's mug with the brackish remnants of their pot of coffee. "Welcome to public education in the South."

"How can they just eliminate an entire arts department and still require students to earn those credits to graduate? It's setting up an entire generation for failure!"

Justin's almost-smile turns sour. The fluorescent lights of the breakroom don't do him any favors, turning his skin sallow and reflecting off the silver in his hair and stubble. Tiny scars of papercuts long forgotten litter his fingers as he goes over the newest batch of geometry pop quizzes in a red pen. Thirty-seven isn't old, not by a long shot, but Justin is a veteran of the public school system, and that can take a toll on the body and spirit.

"It is." Justin pens in a sloppy smiley face at the top of a quiz under the student's 90% score. "But that's why we're here, to keep as many kids as we can from failing. We help, we guide, we lead, we try to keep a straight face when some pimply fifteen year-old trips up and says 'orgasm' instead of 'organism.'"

"You teach math, how often does _that_ happen?"

"Word problems are a very important part of the learning process, Dougie. Are you going to listen to my sage words of advice or are you going to critique my teaching practices?"

"Alright then, Mr. Teacher-of-the-Year 2014. Give me your best advice. What do I do now?"

Justin ticks an eyebrow up and taps his red pen on the "Importance of Good Nutrition" packet, abandoned at the edge of the table. It leaves an ominous red mark over the dancing broccoli's cartoon eyes.

"Get reading, kid. Then we'll go from there."

*** * ***

"The Importance of Good Nutrition" is not a good play. The lines are stilted and the stage directions are lacking. It looks like something Rod printed off a crappy free educational materials website, not an official part of the North Carolina Department of Education secondary education curriculum. Dougie's pretty sure he's learned more about nutrition from a Honey Nut Cheerios tv commercial.

It's bland, it's boring, and between four periods of world history, his batshit AP Euro class, and coaching the girl's soccer team, Dougie doesn't know how he's going to pull this off. He’s never directed a play before.

Like, he's going to. The senior class's ability to graduate—and his job—depend on it.

But that doesn't mean he has to do this all on his own. Teaching is a team sport, more or less.

*** * ***

Jaccob Slavin is, and Dougie isn't being at all facetious when he says this, too good for this world, too pure.

"Of course I'll help with the play!" he exclaims when Dougie asks him after the next social studies department meeting. "I always help with our church's youth group when they put on plays and the nativity pageant. Do you want me to ask Kylie for help, too? She loves getting involved with the community!"

"Bless you," Dougie breathes. He's nearly lightheaded in relief.

"We are all blessed by God's light," Jaccob responds, bright and painfully sincere. He reaches out and clutches Dougie's hand in both of his. Dougie nods.

"Sure, bud."

*** * ***

Auditions are held during the first lunch period in the big auditorium. The word audition here, Dougie knows, is incredibly misleading. The play is mandatory for all seniors—in order for them to get their arts credit required for graduation—so it’s more of a placement test than anything else. A public placement test, during a school assembly, in front of all of their peers.

The seniors are all bored; half of them agitated, the other half high off contraband weed smoked in the student parking lot.

Dougie expected nothing less of them.

"Next!" he calls from the seat directly in front of the stage. He has a clipboard in hand. The front page of notes has neatly written names and roles. The second page is full of increasingly drastic frowny faces. Dougie scribbles in another, felt tip of his pen pressing in hard enough to stain the next page back, while the next kid takes the stage.

"I'm Jake," the kids says, like he isn't in Dougie's fifth period Euro class. He's smiling wide as ever: young, blonde, and a little dumb-looking. The whites of his eyes are almost painfully bloodshot. "I will be reading for the role I was born to play. I will be your Bean."

It takes fifteen minutes to get the auditorium to shut up and Dougie ends up assigning Jake the Bean role without even hearing him read.

He knows when to pick his battles.

*** * ***

In the fashion of most public schools in North Carolina (in the South, in the United States of America, Dougie thinks in growing despair), the R. Francis Public High School is more known for its sports teams than its academics or arts department. Even before the arts department was defunded by state-wide budget cuts, it paled in comparison to bright shining light of the RFPHS athletic department.

Especially with Sebastian Aho, the local soccer legend, leading the Hurricanes to the State Championships.

Sebastian is brilliant on the field, with a mind for fast, intricate plays. He can see openings no one else can, getting goals from almost impossible angles. The kid has an impressive GPA, weighted and unweighted, and Dougie knows for a fact that college recruiters are lined up around the corner for him.

So Dougie cannot for the life of him understand why this little prodigy can't remember his _one_ line.

"Mr. Hamilton. Line please," Sebastian calls out from his spot on the stage. The rest of the cast groans and Dougie struggles not to join them. In the assistant director's chair, Jaccob pats at his shoulder supportively.

Dougie clears his throat and squints down at his dog-eared and stained copy of the script. Carefully, he enunciates, "Lettuce remember to eat all of our vegetables."

Sebastian nods, his eyes wide and dark and serious. He turns back to his partner on stage and says, "We should eat our vegetables."

Only Jaccob's hand on his shoulder keeps Dougie from ripping the script in half.

*** * ***

"Maybe I should reassign parts," Dougie says. The bar is loud, five screens of the Panthers being disappointing in surround sound. The beer is artisanal and hoppy and awful, just like Dougie likes it. "Have Sebastian be the fish instead. All the fish does is flop around and dance."

That had been the exact wording of the stage directions, too: _[FISH flops around and dances]_.

Brett tilts his head consideringly, like he's actually paying attention to Dougie's woes and not following the football game intently. "Makes sense. The kids on the soccer team call him Sea-Bass. Took me a while to figure out it wasn't an insult."

"You could make him and that Targaryen kid two Finnish peas in a pod," Faulker suggests before taking a pull of his beer. Foam coats his mustache.

"Targaryen? You mean Teuvo Teravainen? They're great on the field together, but they'd burn down the set pieces if they're closer than half a stage away from each other. No way I am putting them in that conjoining Pea Pod costume."

"Who would you cast as the Lettuce instead?" Calvin asks from the other side of the bartop.

"Literally anyone. Maybe Jake."

"Jake? Jake Bean? You want to ask Jake Bean to _not_ be the Bean?" At Dougie's shrug, Calvin rolls his eyes and turns back to the nearest screen. "It's your job on the line, dude, not mine."

The bar patrons groan as the Panthers fumble the pass. Dougie raises his pint in solidarity. He'll drink to that, bro.

*** * ***

Against Calvin’s better judgment, Dougie pulls Jake aside after AP Euro to ask him about taking over the role of the Lettuce.

Five minutes later, Dougie has finally calmed him down enough for the kid to breathe normally and stop tearing at his hair. He's wide eyed and teary and looks as betrayed as if Dougie had physically ripped his identity from his very being.

Jake remains cast as the Bean and Dougie resigns himself to feeding Sebastian his one line for the rest of eternity.

*** * ***

Dougie's worked out an arrangement with Jordan—Staal, not Martinook—to balance out the play rehearsals and the soccer practices. Teuvo and Sebastian do rehearsals two times a week and soccer practice three times a week, and in return, Dougie will play chaperone for all of Jordie's upcoming museum field trips.

As if that's a hardship.

Still, it doesn’t explain why, fifteen minutes into rehearsals, Sebastian is still a no-show. Dougie knows Sebastian had been in class that day. Over lunch Justin had sighed in nearly parental fondness over some dumb shit he’d pulled in Stats class that day, so unless he’d been pulled out of school early, he should have been in the auditorium twenty minutes after the last bell of the day, sharp.

“We can just go over the parts he isn’t in,” Jaccob suggests helpfully. Dougie takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly. Jaccob’s right, the kid only has the one line. It’s just…

“He’s the only one who doesn’t know his line.”

Jaccob makes a twisted face as he tries to stay optimistic. Bless him, Dougie thinks again. “Well. We’ll give him another few minutes. We can go over the grains hoe-down with Andrei and Warren, make sure they have their cues.

Dougie nods and claps his hands, gathering the students to him to go over the plan.

Five rounds of grains hoe-downs later, Dougie has to call a timeout before he loses his will to live in the face of shitty public-use hoe-down music.

“Teuvo!” he calls out, then checks himself, makes sure there’s a friendly, nonthreatening history teacher smile on his face.

The Finn looks up from his phone. He’s got a blank look on his face, more disinterested than anything else. “Yeah?”

“Do you know where Sebastian is?”

“Yeah.”

When he doesn’t clarify, Dougie prompts, “Well? Where is he?”

Teuvo sighs gustily. He resumes tapping away at his phone. “Probably on the side of 15-501.”

All idle chatter falls away as the rest of the cast and crew turn to look at Teuvo. His face remains impassive, completely unaware of all the attention turned to him.

“Teuvo,” Jaccob starts, sending a wild-eyed glance Dougie’s way, “do you know _why_ Sebastian is on the side of 15-501? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. We went to get food before rehearsals but then he started annoying me on the way back so I kicked him out on the side of the road.” He looks up, finally noticing all of eyes trained on him in disbelief. “What? He deserved it.”

They end rehearsals early that day.

*** * ***

“Justin. Willie. Please tell me I’m not crazy, or ableist, or anything.”

Justin doesn’t look up from his breakroom coffee or his pre-calc homework grading. “Can’t sign off on that until you give me the background information, Dougie.”

Dougie slumps all six-feet, six-inches of himself across the breakroom table, disrupting Justin’s neat stacks of marked-up papers. He’ll clean it up when he’s done having his moment.

“It’s just one line,” he says into a sheet of paper. In the corner of his eye, he can see that the student has defiantly abbreviated the Angle-Side-Side method. Justin has written “No!!!” next to it in big red letters. “One line, eight words. The longest word is fucking vegetables. Do you think it’s the pun that’s tripping him up?”

Justin hums and continues marking at his papers. The scritching of the felt pen by his ear is surprisingly comforting and Dougie allows himself to drift in the sensation.

Five pages of homework later, Dougie hears Justin set the pen aside. When he opens his eyes, Justin is staring down at him with kind dark eyes, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips and in the crinkles around his eyes. His arms are crossed over his chest, muscles showing through the fabric of his dress shirt.

“Sebastian called me daddy in class today,” Justin says without warning.

“Gross. Or wait, like in a you’re-my-father sort of way? Still gross, but not _gross_.”

Justin shrugs and looks unruffled, much to Dougie’s red-faced dismay. “He played it cool, but I think he was pretty embarrassed. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how young he is.”

“No, it’s pretty obvious, what with the fact that he’s my student and also looks like he’s twelve. _Ow_ , what the hell was that for?”

“You were on my papers,” Justin says, breezily unrepentant. He looks down at where Dougie lies sprawled out on the breakroom floor, as if he hadn’t just shoved him off the table. The sharpness of his grin belies the easiness of his body language.

“You’re a terrible teacher mentor,” Dougie lies through his teeth.

*** * ***

“Lettuce killed more Americans than undocumented immigrants this year,” Sebastian blurts out on his cue.

Dougie is torn between faint surprise, mild pride, and bitter resentment that this boy can remember a socially progressive crime statistic but not one line about eating fucking lettuce.

“That’s okay, Sebastian!” Jaccob calls out next to him. “You’ll get it next time! Take another look at the script and then we’ll take it from the top!”

Maybe Dougie should have pursued professional hockey. Or construction work. Or fucking anything else.

*** * ***

Somehow, miraculously, they pull it off.

Kylie and her team of seniors-turned-sewers churn out costumes that, while not Tony material, certainly get the point across. The wheat pompoms they create for Andrei are unique, to say the absolute least. Backdrops painted with lopsided smiling suns and outdated food pyramids really set the scene and most of the backup dancers remember when they should and should not be doing jazz fingers.

Most impressive of all, Sebastian remembers his line and delivers it perfectly. 

(If Dougie has to sit behind the district evaluator, holding up large-font cue cards, well, no one has to know. They’re _learning aids_.)

As Dougie watches the cast gather on the stage for their final dance number and pithy reminder to eat balanced meals, he feels something warm swirl and grow in his gut. It’s pride, he realizes as clutches the cue cards to his chest. R. Francis Public High School faced this seemingly insurmountable challenge and they, armed with new teachers and a new principal, managed to overcome it.

And Dougie was at the heart of this huge effort. 

Tears prick his eyes even as a grin stretches his mouth. Beside him, Justin snorts softly and digs his elbow gently into Dougie’s ribs.

“I told you it would be fine.”

“You told me nothing of the sort. You gave me a generic leadership speech about not laughing when students say orgasm instead of organism.”

“You need to learn to read between the lines, Dougie. Good thing you teach history instead of literature.”

“I’m not feeling the support here, Willie.”

“Hush,” Justin shushes him and points to the stage, “the big finale is coming up.”

In front of them, the evaluator is marking “satisfactory” on every section of the checklist. Dougie is on top of the world.

Then Jake steps to the front of the stage, resplendent in his his bargain-big fabric bean costume. His hair shines brightly under the stage lights, lips stretched wide in a smile Dougie can see from his seats in the audience. Jake looks out across the audience, takes a deep breath, opens his mouth—

And fucking freezes.

“You have got to be _fucking kidding me_ ,” Dougie seethes.

Onstage, Sebastian bursts out in hysterical laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> if it seems like dougie is low key in love with justin williams, it is because i, the author, am high key in love with justin williams.
> 
> I can be found [on tumblr](https://dalmatienne.tumblr.com) crying publicly about my sweet sweet PLAYOFF STORM BOYS.


End file.
